Waking
by Sin Acies
Summary: Companion piece to Waiting. Zuko wakes to an Avatar who shouldn't still be there and listens to things he doesn't want to think about and tries, for a moment, to understand the why of it all.


Okay, so this is the companion piece to "Waiting" and you'll probably need to read that to really understand what happens in this fic. Zuko was not cooperative and this didn't go quite where I expected it to and it ended before I intended it to. But I typed it up and that's where it decided to end and that's where it felt like it should end. Anyway-

Disclaimer: I don't own them or the show or anything else of note.

Warnings: Spoilers for ep. 1:13, giving it a stronghigh ratingfor language. Set-up for future yaoi. Touches on past abuse. No beta. And the writer is insane.

And big a Thank You! to FyreFlower, Lionessmon, and Nightcrawler for their reviews!

/internal dialogue/ and --voice of memory--

Summary: Zuko wakes to an Avatar who shouldn't still be there and listens to things he doesn't want to think about and tries, for a moment, to understand the _why_ of it all.

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Zuko's head hurt like a sonuvabitch. As he struggled to push the pain away and open his eyes he knew only one thing- Zhao hadn't captured him. There was sunlight on his face, warming him, and no place Zhao would have thrown him would have allowed the slightest hint of sunlight to leak through.

So where the hell _was_ he?

Ignoring the knowledge that opening his eyes was going to exponentially increase his headache, he did it anyway. He forced his eyes to focus, at first unsure what the hell it was he was seeing besides blurs of green/brown/gold, to find himself . . . in the woods? How the hell . . ?

He turned his head toward the blur of orange he could just barely see from the corner of his eye, a groan of pain escaping his lips before he could stop it as his head protested the movement loudly, and found-

The Avatar.

Then the boy was speaking and Zuko, justifying his lack of action with the thought that further movement at this point would probably make his head explode, listened. He listened to the boy speak of a world without war, a world he'd lost a hundred years ago. It had never occurred to him that the Avatar would have people he missed, people he'd lost. It hadn't ever mattered. He'd never stopped to think about the fact that the Avatar was a 12-year-old boy in both body _and_ mind. He'd never thought about what that meant.

Why was he thinking about it _now_ when he should have been trying to figure out a way to capture him while his troublesome friends weren't around? Why was he just _listening_?

Silver-grey eyes turned to meet his and Zuko's heart skipped a beat. Those eyes . . . Those open, honest eyes held a heart's sorrow for a life and family long lost and a world that only he remembered. So much pain and regret and guilt that Zuko couldn't imagine how he could he could bare to speak of it.

For the first time in many years, Zuko wasn't sure what his own eyes might be giving away and didn't care. He could only listen. He could only listen as the boy . . . Aang, looked at him with eyes that held a bleeding soul . . .

The boy's question startled him on a deeper level and for a moment he couldn't even breathe as his mind twisted with the possibilities of a world without war. A world where he wasn't trained from birth to direct men into combat. A world where his father might have had the time to be his _father _instead of a warlord. A world where he could have had friends. A world where he might've been friends with the Avatar.

And it _hurt_. It hurt to think that things might have been different, that he might have been loved, that he might have been _happy_, and he lashed out-

The Avatar simply leapt over his reckless attack and Zuko watched him jump from tree to tree until he was gone, his words ringing endlessly in his mind. Back to his friends. Back to his destiny.

He picked himself up, head throbbing with renewed vigor at his stupid, rash attack. He didn't think the thoughts the boy's words had inspired were helping his headache either. It had been a pointless question. What did it matter if they might have been friends a hundred years ago? He didn't need friends. He didn't need _anyone_.

His eyes found the pile of leaves where he'd been lain, his mask grinning mockingly up at him.

He'd needed help last night. The Avatar could have escaped much easier without him, but he'd come back, refusing to leave his rescuer to be captured and killed in his stead. It was such a stupid thing to do, coming back. Of course, Aang hadn't known it was _him_ behind the mask at that point. He'd come back to help a stranger who'd gotten him out of the Admiral's dungeon.

He hadn't had the time to think about it during their escape, but . . . they'd worked together seamlessly. The boy had probably saved both their lives with his Airbending a dozen times- he thrown the guards off the walls with it. And when he'd shoved one of the ladders into his arms, clutching the other to his chest, and hopping on the third-

He hadn't even hesitated when he'd jumped onto the smaller boy's back, trusting him- _trusting_ him to know what the hell he was doing when he was obviously insane.

They'd almost made it before that bastard Zhao had set the last of their ladders on fire and Aang had jumped. Zuko had felt them falling, had scrabbled with one hand for a hold, the rest of him wrapped around the other boy like a leech- and for a moment he'd known it wasn't the Avatar he was trying so desperately to hang on to, it was his partner.

They'd landed hard- probably because he'd been restricting too much of Aang's movements to allow the boy to Airbend them another soft landing.

The Firebenders had attacked and pure instinct had screamed that he divert the blast-

And before he'd been able to _move_ he'd been spun around, behind Aang, as the boy threw up a wall of air to protect them. To protect _him_. Zuko couldn't remember anyone ever coming to his defense before . . . It left him with an odd feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Sunlight glinted off his mask and he remembered the incredible impact before . . . nothing.

He'd been knocked unconscious. Which explained the headache.

What it _didn't _explain was why Aang hadn't left him there. The mask might've kept him from permanent injury, but he seriously doubted it'd still been hiding his face after whatever the hell had hit him and knocked him out. So Aang had known, then, who he was and why he was there. Why hadn't he left him and run?

Gold eyes studied the pile of leaves, his swords laying on the ground a few feet from where he stood, and his mask nestled in the leaves. The boy had brought him here? He had saved him, _knowing_ who he was? It didn't make sense, dammit! The boy knew he was hunting the Avatar and-

Had he just thought of them as two separate entities?

/What the hell is wrong with me/

Maybe the mask had stayed in place until they got here. That was much easier to understand. You weren't helping an enemy if you didn't _know_ it was your enemy.

Surely, Aang wouldn't have brought him here, wouldn't have saved him, if he'd known it was Prince Zuko beneath the mask. Yes, that had to be it; as improbable as it was, the mask must've stayed in place. It didn't make sense any other way.

/Then why did he stay/

Why _had_ he stayed? Why had he stayed when he'd been all but screaming about frozen frogs and his friends being sick during their escape? Even if Aang had known it was him, once he got him safely here and away from Zhao . . . he'd had no obligation to stay and watch over him.

He kicked at a pebble in frustration.

It was fucking _stupid_!

--. . . we could have been friends, too . . .--

Why the hell did he have to go and say all that shit? It didn't change anything. He had to catch the Avatar so he could go home- that was it. That was all that mattered. He'd spent almost three years now looking for the Avatar so he could go back.

Unbidden, his hand rose to touch his scar.

So he could go back . . .

So his father would look at him with something other than disgust in his eyes.

So what if the Avatar was just a kid too damn stupid and kind-hearted for his own good? So what if he'd saved him from Zhao? It didn't change anything. He was still the Avatar and still the only way Zuko could ever go home.

Home . . .

After so long he couldn't even imagine what it would be like to be there again, to be free of this quest. What would he do if- _when_ he caught the Avatar and took him to his father? Would he just go back to studying politics and strategies and Firebending? Would he ever be able to stand in his father's presence and not remember . . . _that_?

Silver-grey eyes flashed across his mind, full of sadness and heartbreak.

Of all the people in the world who might understand never being able to go home again . . . Aang understood that much. Only the boy didn't have a home in this world any longer, his great-grandfather had seen to that. He'd been fanatical in his extermination of the Air Nomads. Fanatical and thorough.

Aang was the last of the Airbenders. The very last member of his people. He was as alone as Zuko; maybe even more so. Zuko had hope. He could go home after he captured the Avatar; even though he was no longer sure what 'home' was for him now. Aang couldn't ever go home. His home had been stolen from him. He had no place to belong.

And his eyes had said he knew it. Maybe, not so young, afterall.

His eyes had held the knowledge that his only reason for existing now was to fulfill his duty as the Avatar. No home, no people, just a role to play- whether he wanted it or not. Aang was the Avatar, without a home or a people to return to . . . If he did end the war . . . where would he belong after that?

Zuko picked up his mask, thoughtful eyes not really seeing it. What does one do when one's purpose has been completed?

Zuko didn't know, but he wanted to find out. He retrieved his swords and sheathed them and, getting his bearings from the leaf-hidden sun, he started back to his ship.

He had his own purpose to fulfill. And if there was any place left in the world for him after he had completed his task . . . he wanted it. He needed it.

Sad grey eyes haunted him for a long time after that. They followed him as he stumbled through the forest back to his ship, twisting his mind down paths he didn't want to pursue. He didn't want to think about the Avatar as anything but the Avatar. Not as a human. Not as a boy. Certainly not as a _friend_.

Not as someone who could understand him. Not as someone who _wanted_ to understand him. Not as someone who was as hurt and lost and lonely as he- _wasn't_. Because he didn't need anyone, he reminded himself fiercely, because he wasn't hurt or lost and why should he be lonely? He had his Uncle and his crew and his father's promise that if he captured the Avatar he could come home.

That was enough.

He could go home after he captured the Avatar- that was all that mattered. It was all that was _allowed_ to matter. His purpose. His destiny. His duty.

Nevermind the sorrow under the Avatar's smile or the fear behind his words.

It didn't matter.

It _couldn't_ matter. He wouldn't let it.

And yet, the thoughts wouldn't leave him. They harried him even as he sought out his bed, hoping that sleep would seal them away and he could forget them. But sleep wouldn't come and he stared, almost angrily, at the Fire Nation flag hung on his wall. He glared at the symbol that had always meant home and power and his father.

Was it only now, after the damned Avatar's words, that the symbol brought back memories of pain? Why now, did it all seem to be a great joke? Why _was_ he fighting to go back home? Why was he so desperate to prove to his father that he was worth _something_? Why- when no matter how hard he'd tried in the past, it had never changed the cold disdain in his father's eyes? Why did he think this would end any differently? Why did he think that _this_ time his father would . . . accept him?

He never had, even before his suicidal outburst in the war counsel.

For the first time in his life, he wondered if his father's approval was worth all that it had cost him in the past and all it would continue to cost him should he ever return to the Fire Nation. He wondered if his father's approval was worth never being the person he _was_ and instead being, forever, the Prince his father demanded he become.

He wondered, and barely knew he wondered it at all, if his father's acceptance was worth adding to the hurt in silver-grey eyes.

He rolled over forcefully, ordering his brain to be _silent_ and let him sleep.

His dreams, when they finally came, were filled with angry flames and fear. Running down darkened hallways, knowing the fire was behind him, hungry to consume him. Followed by hands that hurt if they touched him and laughter that cut. Old memories, hateful and cruel and real. He was plagued by golden eyes that were as cold and dead as the fire was hot and alive- and found himself soothed by the touch of cool air and the offer in sad, grey eyes. It was enough.


End file.
